Very often these initiators eliminate the drawbacks presented by the more common protic and Lewis acid catalysts in that they are chemically well defined and allow a quantitative initiation reaction to proceed without complicated side reactions or the need for cocatalysts and promoters.

The technique uses the Lewis acid tris(pentafluorophenyl) borane and the Lewis base tetramethylpiperidine that have been modified to be too large to get close enough to form an adduct (Lewis bases, which carry a lone pair of electrons, can bond with Lewis acids to form molecules called adducts).

Scientists mainly in Japan, but also in China, Singapore, France, Canada, and the US are the authors, with chapters on the many uses of Lewis acid as a catalyis for organic synthesis including Mg(II), Zn(II), Ca(II), Li(I), Na(I), K(I), Boron(III), Al(III), Ga(III), IN(III), Si(IV), Sn(II & IV), Bismuth(III), and polymer-supported metal Lewis acids, among others.

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